I'll Bear The Cost, Shed My Skin
by Unoriginality
Summary: 30 drabbles, spanning from Bucky's time before coming home, to the move to New York. (A BTWWL fic.)


Written using 30 Prompts Table A from 100_prompts on LJ. Thirty drabbles chronicling Bucky's slow recovery from the streets to the move to New York. Five themes chosen from the other two 30 Prompts tables for the five 'writer's choice' themes at the end.

**01 - Evidence**

When James killed that man, he left no evidence behind. He left no fingerprints. Metal did not have fingerprints. No DNA that anyone could trace. He didn't exist. He was a homeless non-entity.

He hadn't meant to kill the man. He'd panicked. The man had tried to take his bag, his bag with his only remaining possessions that he couldn't even call his own, tactical gear and weapons, and money stolen to keep from starving while he decided who to go back to.

But it didn't matter. He was another street bum like James was.

Nobody would miss him.

**02 - I'm Here**

He- the Soldier, James, Bucky, it didn't fucking matter in those moments -would wake up from nightmares, from the feeling of the chemicals, the pain in his arm, the searing hell of the mindwipes. He'd never know he'd been screaming until Steve had woken and was sitting on his bed, holding him like they were still kids.

"I'm here, Buck. It's okay, it's over."

He'd shake, convulse as if he were still in that chair until Steve's voice broke through the dark place in his head that he was lost in and dragged him back.

"I'm here, Steve. I'm okay."

**03 - Funeral**

Steve had never been one to cry much. When they were young, Steve would take his beatings with a quivering lip but no tears, and as the years went by, even the lip quiver had gone. Pain was something Steve shouldered without complaint.

When Peggy died, he didn't cry in front of her family, or the Important People that were at her funeral to honor her contributions to the world.

After everyone had gone though, once it was just them, his eyes got wet. "We're all that's left."

Bucky put his hand on Steve's arm. It was just them now.

**04 - Puppy Love**

Steve hadn't grown up without his share of unrequited love, but it never seemed to go anywhere. Most girls just weren't comfortable being taller than their date, and the few that didn't seem to mind panicked too much when Steve had an asthma attack. Nothing ever stuck.

When Bucky first saw how Steve reacted to Peggy, he could tell that he'd found someone who deserved more than that puppy love he'd given to women before.

So it broke his heart to watch Steve come home after visiting Peggy. That steadfast love was there, battered, though, by watching Peggy slip away.

**05 - Gloves**

"I dunno if I love or hate winter."

"Why's that?"

"I fucking hate cold. I spent too many years being cold."

"I hear a 'but' in there."

"You're imagining things."

"You said you didn't know if you hated winter or not, which means there's a 'but' in there."

"Okay, fine. _But_, I can wear long sleeves and full-fingered gloves and nobody cares or even notices. Hides my stupid arm."

"That 'stupid arm' has saved our lives before, you know."

"Yeah, but people stare."

"I think your hair causes that more than your arm does."

"Fuck you, Rogers."

**06 - Blackboard**

Bucky really loved the tablet that Steve had convinced Tony to make for him. It'd been made under the pretense of needing a modern blackboard to store their information on Hydra, but Bucky was sure that Tony knew it'd get used for the internet too.

Steve much preferred the intended application of it; it held charts chronicling activity levels, locations that had been wiped out and suspected locations that hadn't been searched yet. All held on a computer smaller than a book.

But Bucky's favorite thing to do was to find disturbing shit on the internet to traumatize Steve with.

**07 - Muse**

Bucky sometimes looked through Steve's sketchbooks. He had two, one full, one not, and Steve had said the full one was stuff from the old days, and then more recent things of the Avengers. Bucky didn't care about the Avengers and wasn't ready to take the trip down memory lane.

The second book proved that Bucky must've become Steve's muse somewhere along the line, most of the early pictures shots of him as Steve had last seen him before coming home.

"I see you like me."

"I just wanted to make sure I didn't forget who I was looking for."

**08 - Magic**

The changes Project Rebirth had done to Steve seemed miraculous, as if done by magic. It healed his asthma, his heart, his eyes. It made him taller, stronger, faster. It made his outward strength match his inward strength.

What was done to Bucky was anything but a miracle. If it was magic, then it was hell magic. It hurt. It put him through agonizing days of pain. Every second of it hurt, until his brain wanted to explode, until he felt numb inside, ready to be opened up, poured out, replaced with something else.

Bucky Barnes didn't believe in miracles.

**09 - Clean**

Bucky cleaned his weapons almost to the point of obsession, keeping each one ready for when he needed it. Steve didn't bother him over it much, it was something for Bucky to do besides read or find things to share on the internet, not all of which were nice. Steve didn't question more than once or twice, took Bucky's dismissal of it as a good habit to be in, and left him alone.

But Bucky knew that Steve wasn't stupid, and could read him far better than he cared for sometimes. He wondered. And he was probably right about why.

**10 - Secret**

Bucky tended to keep things to himself. Steve had seen the file, it wasn't like any of what Bucky had gone through in those experiments weren't unknown to him. Bucky just didn't want to talk about them. Who would? Every word about it was reliving it all over again. Even thinking about it made his stomach knot up, why the hell would he talk about it? Besides, it'd only upset Steve.

So he kept things to himself. They were his grim secrets that weren't secrets at all. It felt like those kinds of secrets were the hardest to deal with.

**11 - Superstition**

When Bucky was younger, he didn't have many superstitions. They could be fun, but they were largely just silly. He had his habit of wearing his favorite socks on game day when he was in baseball; every athlete had _something_ they did. He knew it wouldn't actually win them the game or help him do better, but it made him feel better. It was harmless.

Bucky's superstitions had turned into paranoia after escaping Hydra, and they weren't harmless; forgetting to be armed when he went out could lead to his death or capture if Hydra agents showed up.

**12 - Fantasy**

Sometimes Bucky thought his life had become some weird fantasy, like he was dead and his life in DC was the most bizarre afterlife he'd ever heard of. He wasn't sure when life had gone from 'things were so normal' to 'where the hell am I and where did my life go wrong?', although he'd lay money that it was when little Steve became big Steve.

Or maybe he'd died on that mountain and everything following wasn't real. He wasn't sure if it would be better or not if that was the case, instead of Hydra having been his reality.

**13 - Test**

"So it's been over a year since you started working with Steve," Natasha said, rather at random, Bucky thought.

He glanced at her over his tablet, noticing that Steve was raising his eyebrow over his sketchbook, but otherwise not answering. Natasha's statement was directed specifically at Bucky.

Which meant she was testing him again. He wanted to grab Steve's pencil and stab it through her eye.

Which made a good argument for why she needed to test him, actually.

"Yeah. Amazingly, the Winter Soldier can work and play well with others."

She shrugged. "Just commenting."

Test momentarily passed. Thank Christ.

**14 - Tease**

"So how long have you two been together?" Pepper asked the second evening of their visit. She had a shit-eating grin that said that poor Steve was going to get that joke thrown at him by everyone in that group, whether he liked it or not.

"Over a hundred years, and that's a hundred years too long," Steve said, giving the stink-eye to first Pepper, then Bucky.

Bucky stared, wide-eyed. "What'd I do? I have been nothing but nice to you. Some boyfriend you are."

"And that is exactly why it's been a hundred years too long."

**15 - Storm**

When a spring thunderstorm hit, it sent everyone indoors. But James and anyone else stuck living in the streets didn't have that option. He had no car, no house. Public stores risked getting kicked out for loitering.

So he sat out in the rain and the wind, hunched back against the wall of a building, hoping that lightning wouldn't decide that his arm was a nice thing to strike.

And of course, it had to hail.

_Fuck you, Mother Nature._

He wanted a home to go to. Somewhere warm and dry. Where he wasn't alone. He missed Steve.

**16 - Strawberries**

"Chocolate-covered strawberries are overpriced this time of year," Steve complained, staring at his laptop.

"Isn't February the _only_ time of year they're on sale?" Bucky asked.

"No, _Chloe's_ sells them year-round. They're pretty good." Steve frowned, realization on his face. "I've never taken you there, have I?"

Bucky slowly shook his head.

"After the busy season, I'm taking you."

"You're taking me to try chocolate-covered strawberries."

"And dinner."

Bucky stared at him.

"You're the one that makes the joke, let me be a good boyfriend for once."

Bucky couldn't do anything but laugh.

**17 - Weapon**

They'd both been made to be weapons. Even Steve was pretty blase about that. One meant to be a bullet aimed at Hydra's heart, the other to be Hydra's attack dog. Both on opposite sides of a war.

And while the war never really ended, the worst of it passed, and what was left became a game of hide and go seek between Hydra and the rest of the world.

Steve and Bucky were better at hide and go seek than Hydra was. Sooner or later, that bullet and that attack dog would find them and make them pay dearly.

**18 - Beach**

They only stayed in Geneva that one night, their vacation interrupted the next day by a failed bank robbery attempt. And they'd spent time before dinner out by the lake, watching the waves. So going back out in the dead of night while Steve was asleep really wasn't necessary.

That didn't stop Bucky from doing it.

He didn't know why. It probably didn't matter. He'd had plenty of time to think earlier.

He just wanted a quiet moment to himself, to simply be. To not be Bucky Barnes. To not be the Winter Soldier, either. To just _be._

**19 - Lost**

He'd spent so long feeling lost. Feeling empty with an overcrowded brain. Years of chemicals and mindwipes had taken their toll and he'd had to go through mental withdrawal before he could even function enough to decide where to go. Who to go back to.

With Hydra came predictability. Order. But he wasn't sure the guilt they'd caused would go away this time.

With Steve was home. Warmth. Family. But it came with the uncertainty of what would happen if Hydra found him.

He wanted to go home.

So he snuck into Steve's empty apartment, and waited to be found.

**20 - Cry**

Before Steve moved Bucky's bed into his room, Bucky would try to avoid sleeping in his bed. He'd never slept alone, not with Hydra. Nobody trusted him to not leave. The only time he slept alone was in cryosleep.

Suddenly having to sleep in his own room in a bed too soft felt unnatural. It felt wrong. And it felt terrifying. Sleeping in his room almost inevitably meant that he'd be crying himself to sleep, desperate to hear the sound of someone else in the room to let him know that he wasn't preparing for that darkness and cold again.

**21 - Aloof**

Most people considered him aloof, even outright creepy for how unresponsive he was in public. Bucky never gave much of an impression either way to strangers. Steve got plenty of looks and the occasional punch to the arm, though.

Mama never seemed to think of him that way, and she seemed determined to get through that and see some semblance of humanity in him. She was a bit naive for it; not everyone had enough humanity to bother with.

But Mama didn't give up on him, and she practically crowed with delight the first time he gave her a smile.

**22 - Blood**

When Bucky chose to go home, and was no longer too scattered by the damage the mindwipes had caused to focus, he'd spend time going over every face of all his targets in his mind. Age, gender, race, none of that had mattered. They were inconveniences to Hydra. They were 'the target', and it didn't matter what they did. The handlers ordered their death, so Bucky pulled the trigger.

The hardest part wasn't even their blood on his hands. The hardest part was he couldn't even give them the dignity of a name or a reason why they were killed.

**23 - Tower Block**

Their apartment building just barely qualified as a tower block, sitting eight stories high, with Steve and Bucky on the sixth floor. It was an older building, so the old-fashioned fire escape was present, and it conveniently went right under the window in their apartment.

In a desperate bid one evening to get away from Steve before he exploded all over him in tiny Bucky bits of stress, he crawled out the window. Steve called after him, but Bucky noticed he didn't follow. Good.

If he hadn't gotten away, he would've ended up pushing Steve into an ugly fight.

**24 - Taxi**

Bucky and Steve had a regular ritual of going to Mama's Restaurant. Steve chatted with Mama, Bucky stayed silent. One particularly unfortunate day, they ran into trouble after leaving. Steve walked up to their car, digging around in his pockets. He frowned, then glanced in the driver side window. "Uh. Bucky? I need your keys. I left mine in the car."

Bucky stared at him, hoping he hadn't heard that right.

"Bucky?"

_You must be goddamn kidding me._

"Don't tell me, they're at the apartment."

Slow nod.

"I'll go in and call for a taxi, I guess."

Goddamnit.

**25 - Search**

"We've been searching for you," Steve said as he finished putting away his groceries.

Bucky watched where everything went, committing it to memory. "I know."

Steve looked over at him. "Mind if I ask where you've been hiding?" Bucky gave him an extended silence in answer. Steve sighed and started digging around for cookware. "You've been safe?"

"Hydra never found me. So yes." Steve made a noncommittal noise. "You didn't find me because I was looking for me faster than you were. I had to. To come home."

Steve smiled, just a little. "Then welcome home. Glad you found us."

**26 - Heavy**

When he first got his arm, despite his hatred for the people who had put it there, he'd been somewhat relieved that he wouldn't have to go through life partly crippled. The technology was magnificent, giving him something even better than what he'd lost. Strong. Fast. Durable.

But as he slipped farther and farther away, until only the Winter Soldier was left, it'd become nothing but a weapon, just another asset on missions.

Now that he'd been found, it became nothing but a heavy reminder of the Winter Soldier, something no more removable from Bucky as the arm itself was.

**27 - Shield**

Steve's shield had always been a line of defense that sometimes could be used offensively in the right hands, those hands being Steve's. It represented the freedom and justice Captain America stood for, even when the American government didn't live up to those standards. It stood for what America was supposed to be about.

For Bucky, it wasn't a symbol of Captain America. It was a symbol of Steve. Of the way it kept Steve safe in combat, of the way it was used to protect his partner.

To Bucky, it was the safety from Hydra that Steve gave him.

**28 - Hands**

Bucky's hands were mismatched, something he was coming to terms with as the months passed. Steve didn't react to the arm as if it were different from his flesh one, except when he was dumb enough to hit it when Bucky irritated him. Then he swore profusely. At least the damn thing was good for something, even if that something was a cheap laugh.

It wasn't until Steve took them into a new line of work, one where that arm would once again be useful as a weapon, this time to help protect Steve, did Bucky make peace with it.

**29 - Morals**

Once upon a time, Bucky had considered himself a realistic pacifist. He didn't go picking fights, he didn't like to, but he would sure as hell finish them, especially when it was to protect himself or Steve. (Usually Steve.) But he never actually liked hurting people.

When he was drafted, he'd balked. He'd never wanted to hold any of the weapons he designed. He didn't want to kill a man.

Then Steve tapped him for the Howling Commandos. Then his reasons for where he was changed.

Bucky started looking his targets in the eye after that. His morals had changed.

**30 - Shame**

When Bucky first went home, he held onto his mask of the Winter Soldier to deal with his new situation. He'd gone through the worst of the mental withdrawal in the streets, but now, he was facing someone other than himself for what was done to him, facing Steve, wonderful Steve whom Bucky still wanted to be strong for. And the shame had returned. He found himself clinging to the Winter Soldier to keep from breaking down.

It usually didn't work, so he'd just hide in the bathroom, instead of letting Steve see what those experiments had done to him.


End file.
